Food Sales to Sport
He carries on the family tradition of introducing new ideas to the community but now in a completely different way. At the same time, he was able to turn his passion into a new career.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
YW was born into an Asian – American family in Philadelphia. In 1990, YW’s parents opened a factory in the city, to produce and sell tofu, a meat substitute. When YW was 13, the family moved to the suburbs.
CHILDHOOD DREAMS OF AN ADULT CAREER
As a teenager, YW dreamed of building machines.
EDUCATION
YW graduated from a suburban, public high school and then earned his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Drexel University.
FIRST ADULT CAREER
Instead of immediately joining the family business, YW began his first adult career as a designer of industrial machines that manufactured a variety of equipment, ranging from conveyor belts to furnaces.
CAREER CHANGE REASONING
After six years fulfilling his childhood dream of designing machines, which he’d worked so hard during school to learn how to do very well, YW realized that his engineering career didn’t offer him the opportunity to be creative. While working for several different companies but essentially performing the same engineering tasks, “I realized that every company I jumped to, it was the same thing over again. I had a very specific job and instructions, and it was cool that we were building machines but to do the actual problem-solving, there wasn’t a whole lot of that.”
RANDOM EXPERIENCE MOTIVATES A NEW CAREER PATH
While visiting a friend in New York City, YW was invited to try archery at an indoor range. He had never seen the sport before. “The first thing I remember seeing was a lady drawing back an Olympic-style bow and I immediately noticed that the sport was for everyone – it doesn’t care who you are, your age, or your gender.”
When YW returned to Philadelphia, he took archery lessons and liked how the sport “cleared (my) head; how it required (me) to focus on the shot and nothing else.”
Within a year of adopting archery as his primary sport, YW noted that the successor company to his family’s business was relocating from the family’s original factory building. YW then saw an opportunity to buy that building and turn his new sports passion into a career earning enough to support his living expenses.
TAKING A REASONABLE BUSINESS RISK
YW studied the market value of the factory building and then developed a business plan to purchase and manage an unusual (for an urban area) sports business, incorporating projected expenses for renovations to convert the facility for indoor archery. Because YW had earned a high credit rating while working as an industrial engineer for the past six years and the cost of minimal renovations would be low with some volunteer labor, plus his projected business income seemed realistic, YW was able to persuade a bank to loan the money to purchase and renovate the building.
(Editor’s note – If the business failed, the bank would likely sell the property and YW would be personally responsible for any balance due to the bank beyond the sold value of the building and equipment. With a sensible business plan, this was a reasonable risk.)
Friends helped YW paint the factory’s interior with black-and-white murals of notable Philly landmarks such as Independence Hall and the Museum of Art. He designed a ‘90-minute beginner class for people ages 8 to 108’. YW’s business is now the only indoor archery facility within the city limits.
CAREER SATISFACTION
Eventually, YW hopes to organize a city-based archery team to compete in tournaments. In the meantime, “I get a lot of genuine thank you’s for opening the business and for showing us this new sport.”
YW is pleased to be utilizing building space where his family business had found earlier success introducing a new food substitute to the city, while YW now earns a living introducing a mind-calming sport to city people who would likely never have had the opportunity to share his joy and passion.
